


A Little Growing Up

by UnabashedBird



Series: Never Never Land [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dean gets a much-needed lecture from the ladies, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Jess is the mom friend, because he needs to stop being gross at/about college girls, human!Cas, human!Meg, two couches is not enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6620374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnabashedBird/pseuds/UnabashedBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has trouble being an adult about being the only single person living in the bunker.</p><p>The ladies refuse to let him get away with being gross about college girls.</p><p>Dean gets promised a new couch, so in the end everybody's happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Growing Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the April 2016 spnwritingchallenge on tumblr. This month all the prompts were phrases, and I was given "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?"
> 
> This fic takes place an unspecified but probably relatively short time after "Faith, Trust, and a Dog or Four." If you haven't read that, well, obviously I'd love it if you did, but basically what you need to know is that Dean, Sam, (resurrected) Jess, (now human) Cas, (now human and also in a new and otherwise unoccupied body) Meg, Charlie, and Dorothy are living happily and more or less harmoniously in the bunker, along with four dogs: Nana, Lulu, Strider, and Gimli (I wrote "Faith, Trust" for a big bang, so there's fanart of the dogs that you should definitely check out even if you don't want to read the story).

"Really?" Dean groused when he entered the library.

Sam's forehead crinkled in confusion. "What?"

Dean spread out his hands, one of which held a beer, to take in all the library's occupants while moving his head and widening his eyes in a  _well, duh!_  motion.

Sam glanced around from his seat at the table; Jess, who sat in his lap as they worked, did the same, and Nana, lying at their feet, lifted her head off her paws.

Dorothy and Charlie occupied one couch--Dorothy leaned against one of its high arms with Charlie snuggled against her chest and Lulu sprawling over both their legs; both wore headphones and had, until Dean's disruption, been engrossed in whatever was playing on Charlie's laptop. Charlie, curious, reached out and pressed pause.

Meg and Cas were on the other sofa, Meg with her tablet resting on Strider and Gimli's backs where they lay curled up in her lap, Cas surrounded by a carefully arranged nest of books and notes that accommodated Meg's sprawl--her head was pillowed on one arm of the couch with her legs stretched out in Cas' lap. Meg raised a condescending eyebrow and Cas cocked his head.

"Look I can live with being the only one around here who isn't gettin' any on the regular," Dean said. "But the rest of you don't have to flaunt it."

"Oh, sugar, this is not flaunting," Meg said. "I'll demonstrate flaunting if you like, but this ain't it."

"Meg," Sam and Jess chorused warningly.

She sighed. "Or I could respect Mom and Dad's wishes and continue to innocently recline while my boy-toy serves one of his many important functions by being my footrest."

"You know what I mean!" Dean said, bulldozing right over Meg's reference to Sam and Jess as parental figures. "You're all, all cozy and cuddly all the time, even while you're doing research--I mean c'mon, Sam!" He gestured at Sam and Jess' arrangement.

"Wait a minute," Charlie said, removing her headphones. "Are you jealous?"

"What? No. No, that is not the word I would use. But you're all coupled off, and I'm, I mean, I don't want the thing that you have, no, I'm very happy with my hook-up ways, but I've pretty much exhausted the local resources because friggin' Lebanon is  _tiny--_ "

"So that's a big yes on the jealousy front," Charlie cut in.

"I just don't like being reminded that you guys only have to drag each other to a bedroom while I'm stuck driving like an hour to have a chance at fresh faces, and don't get me started on how far off the college towns are--"  
"Whoa!" Jess interrupted. "What the hell do you want with college towns?"

Dean blinked, then smirked broad and suggestive. "What, I gotta spell it out for you?"

"Aren't girls at colleges teenagers?" Dorothy asked, looking around.

"Only some of them," Dean said, on the defensive. "And even then they're eighteen, so--"

"Not necessarily," Charlie said, dawning horror in her voice. "I mean, you get that high schoolers take classes on campus, not to mention visit because they're considering attending, right? And then of course there's the kids who graduate early and are full on college students while still seventeen, or sometimes younger."

"And even if they  _are_  eighteen," Jess said, picking up the thread of what Sam knew was a much-needed scolding that Dean never would have listened to from him, "you are in your  _mid-thirties_ , which makes you ogling them officially  _gross_."

"Hey, whoa, OK, now, I can admit that you've brought up some things I hadn't considered, but I don't think--"

"Let me stop you before you shove your foot any further down your throat," Meg broke in, voice deceptively indolent. "Because I'm sure you're going to dive into some anecdote that nobody wants to hear about being at a college bar and having plenty of ladies flirt with you. Leaving aside the suspicious lack of a date for the anecdote, let me point out the likelihood that for every college girl who might welcome your attention, there are two--"

"At the least," Jess added.

"At the least," Meg agreed, "who would be made deeply uncomfortable by it. But hey, you want to go around upsetting impressionable young women for your own gratification, that's . . . a perfect excuse for me to kick your ass, actually. And I think I'd have some help if I did."

"Sam? Cas? You guys just gonna let the ladies gang up on me like this?"

"Yup," Sam said, grinning.

"Jessica and Charlie have me reading up on gender politics in order to improve my human behavior," Cas said. "I believe that the women are in the right and you are in the wrong in this instance, Dean. Human women experience a great deal of unwanted male attention, and as you are my friend, I would be ashamed if you were contributing to that."

"Geez, a guy makes one throwaway comment--"

"It's not throwaway if you meant it," Jess said firmly.

Dean sighed loudly. "OK, fine, you've made your point, I'm too old to troll for co-eds. Is the lecture over now?"

"Of course!" Charlie said, her smile bright with relief. Sam knew how much she hated butting heads with Dean, and he was really proud of her for doing it anyway--he made a mental note to be sure and mention that later. After all, he of all people knew how hard it was.

Dean took a swig of beer, then put his hands on his hips and looked around the library. "We're gonna need another couch," he concluded.

"Why?" Dorothy asked. "There's a perfectly good chair and footstool right there." She pointed to the corner.

"It's not the same," Dean complained, collapsing into it.

"Will you stop whining about innocent and also practical physical closeness if we get another couch?" Jess asked.

Dean thought for a moment, taking a few more sips of beer. "Yeah, that'd probably work."

"OK, fine, we'll get you another couch," Jess said.

"Thanks, Mom," Meg said, without looking up from her laptop.

Jess wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at her. Meg grinned and Sam chuckled. "Don't take it personally, Jess. You've simply resumed your natural role as the mom friend--or have you forgotten that Luis used to call you that, too?"

"Arrghhhh," Jess said, burying her face in his chest in mock despair.

"So, family trip to a proper town with proper stores tomorrow?" Charlie checked hopefully.

"Looks that way," Sam answered, wrapping his arms around Jess and ruffling her hair, causing her to squeal.

"You know, I don't have my new couch yet, so I think I'm still allowed to--"

"Shut up, Dean," everyone said in accidental unison.

Dean flipped them off and drank his beer, and everyone settled back into what they were doing before the interruption.


End file.
